Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(14)

Everyone stared at me, and I sighed.

Jesus. I had too much work to do to deal with this right now. I wanted to flirt and have sex with him in the stacks, but couldn’t he wait until after my study session? I knew I’d led him on to believe it would happen soon…but not right now.

“Give me a minute,” I said. I put one finger up and finished writing in my notes.

Grant stood by and waited for me.

How embarrassing.

“I’ll be right back.” I hurried out of the room and after Grant. Closing the door quietly behind me, I groaned in frustration. “What? I’m in the middle of this session, and things aren’t going that great.”

“Ari,” he said softly. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he wasn’t meeting my eyes. He had this hollow look on his face as if he’d seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sydney called. My dad showed up at Duffie’s.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “What did he want? Why didn’t anyone tell you that he was out already? Last we heard, he was going to get out on parole, but—”

“Well, it looks like he’s out. Sydney said that my uncle called her to see if she had spoken to me. She thought that was weird, and he ended up telling her that my dad had called a couple of times. Today, he showed up at the restaurant.”

“What does he want?”

Grant sighed and then finally looked at me. His eyes were hard when he answered, “Me.”

I blew out the breath I’d been holding. Great. Just when things were finally going right, his dad had to force himself into the picture. Why would he even think that Grant would want to see him? After killing Grant’s mother and attempting to blame the whole thing on Grant, didn’t his dad realize he’d done enough damage?

“So, what does this mean?” I asked.

“I…I don’t know.” He walked down an empty row of books empty of people.

It killed me that he was going through this. All I wanted was to be there for him, but I didn’t know where to start. It wasn’t as if I could call his dad up and tell him to leave Grant alone.

“Grant,” I said, following after him. I latched on to his shirt and stopped him in place. “Talk to me. Tell me everything that Sydney said.”

“That’s it. She didn’t really know anything.”

“Are you going to call your uncle?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I know this is hard,” I said, rubbing my hand up his arm, “but you can’t ignore it.”

“I’m not ignoring it. I’m trying to f*cking deal with it. The thought of him being out of prison, stalking me…” He breathed in heavily and ground his teeth together. “You don’t know what it’s been like the last thirteen years he’s been locked up. I carry this guilt with me that I’m somehow responsible for my mother’s death.”

“You’re right,” I said softly. “I’ll never know what that’s like.” I looked down at the ground and then back up at Grant. I needed to be strong for him right now. “But I’m here for you…for everything you’re going through.”

I slid my hand into my shirt and pulled out the dog tags that Grant had given me when we decided to become exclusive. They’d belonged to his dad, and Grant had worn them daily until we started going out.

“I keep you close to my heart. Keep me close to yours,” I whispered.

Grant pulled me into a hug, sinking into me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him as tightly as I could. I knew that I couldn’t keep him together like this, but I would damn well try.

“Ugh,” he groaned, tearing away from me. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Do what?”

“This.” He gestured between us. “I need to get out of here.”

“And do what?”

“Who cares?”

I reached for him, and he pulled away.

“No. Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. I’m here for you.”

“I can’t talk about this right now, Ari. Go back to your little study session.”

He waved his hands to shoo me away and then took off toward the stairs. I raced after him. I was not going to let him walk out on me in the state he was in. His dad made him insane. He had been all right on the beach when he first found out his dad was getting out of jail because it was some far-off reality. Now that it was here, I didn’t know what he would do.

I jogged to keep up with him through the entranceway and out of the library.

“Would you stop?” I yelled as soon as we were out of the building. “You can’t run away from your problems!”

“I’m not running from my problems. I’m running from you.” He continued walking to the parking lot.

“I must be the only person here who sees that as a problem.”

“Must be.”

He reached for the handle to his blue pickup truck, and I threw myself in front of him.

“I know you’re being an * because you’re pissed off. If you missed the old Aribel, well, then she’s back. Don’t act like I mean nothing to you because you got some upsetting news. You can’t run from me. I tried to get away from you, Grant, and I couldn’t. You fought for me tooth and nail. There is no way I’m letting you storm off, get plastered at the League, and do something you’ll regret.”